Webinar on the application of the Unified Rules for the Organization of the Acquisition, Record-Keeping, Storage and Use of Museum Objects and Museum Collections

The webinar was opened by Mikhail Piotrovsky, President of the Union of Museums of Russia, General Director of the State Hermitage: "We usually start conferences by complaining about how bad it is that everything has to be done through Zoom, but we could never gather such an audience if the meeting were held in person. In total we have almost a thousand attending and many more who couldn't join the webinar because of the limitation on the number of participants. So, everything is becoming really public and open, and that is very important, in particular concerning what we are going to talk about today. We are talking about unified rules for record-keeping and storage, their adoption is a major event.

“The government played an important role in it by setting up a regulatory guillotine system and a ’Culture’ working group to select the documents that needed to be changed. The group included representatives from the Ministry of Culture, the Union of Museums of Russia, ICOM Russia and just individual representatives museums belonging to very different types.

“Today, colleagues will be speaking who took part in the creation of this document and who are already working with it in practice. We have received many questions from the Union of Museums of Russia which we will be looking at.”

The online meeting was moderated by Svetlana Borisovna Adaksina, Deputy General Director and Chief Curator of the State Hermitage. The speakers were Natalia Viktorovna Romashova, Director of the Regulatory Department of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation; Sergei Yevgenyevich Bogatyrev, ICOM Russia, Deputy Director of the Museum of Russian Icons; Anton Valentinovich Gorianov, Head of Museum and Exhibition Activities in the Moscow City Culture Department; Natalia Borisovna Grishanova, Head of Scientific Documentation in the Hermitage’s Department for the Organization of Registration and Storage; Anna Nikolayevna Aponasenko, Deputy Head of Scientific Documentation in the Hermitage’s Department for the Organization of Registration and Storage; Marina Alexeyevna Blumin, Head of the Hermitage’s New Acquisitions Sector; Marina Viktorovna Chistiakova, Deputy Director for Work with the Stocks at the State Historical Museum; Yelena Vladimirovna Serebrova, Director of the State Museum of the Defence of Moscow; Zakhar Mikhailovich Kolovsky, General Director of the ROSPHOTO State Museum and Exhibition Centre; Vladimir Viktorovich Opredelenov, Deputy Director of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts;.

The speakers’ presentations were prepared on the basis of the questions submitted in advance by museum specialists from all over the country. In addition, questions were asked throughout the webinar.

During the online meeting, the need to draw up guidelines for the application of the Unified Rules for the Organization of the Acquisition, Record-Keeping, Storage and Use of Museum Objects and Museum Collections was noted.

A recording of the webinar is available on the website of the Union of Museums of Russia.